Fixmer / McCarthy ­- So Many Lies

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  • In 2003, Terence Fixmer and Nitzer Ebb frontman Douglas McCarthy teamed up for the first time as Fixmer / McCarthy. Their Destroy / Freefall EP was the amuse-bouche to the duo's debut album, Between The Devil. Off that teaser, "Destroy" was heavy-fisted and full of hate, spiked with an aggro technoid streak that felt more hardcore for the dance floor than the EBM-indebted techno Fixmer made solo. "Freefall," on the other hand, sounded like Depeche Mode doing an International Deejay Gigolo hit, dark electro with pop appeal. The record transcended what each artist had been known for individually, without straying far outside their shared gene pool. It also established the two polar extremes that Between The Devil would journey between. Fixmer has since weaned himself off EBM on his solo outings for Electric Deluxe and CLR, typified by the two albums with a strong sense of space and sound design. McCarthy also struck out on his own, notably as part of DJM/REX, a new modular synth-based collaboration with LA artist Cyrusrex and others. So Many Lies marks the duo's first studio reunion in eight years, and it's a timely reanimation of the sound they first plundered. The titular A-side is a great big dirge. Its strummed bass, so low and guttural, snarls like a beast as McCarthy wails the song's only two lines: "So many words, so many lies" and "I can't take any more!" Anguish spirals in the vocals and Fixmer reciprocates, ramping up the background din in the closing quarter—the drums stick to their leaded clomp, however, like an interminable death march. Once it boils over, the track evaporates in a mist of breathy vapours. On the flip, Fixmer's "Instinct Mix" is a stinging, spitting, hissing rebuttal to the original, delivering the digital angst of "Destroy" with a modern cadence.
  • Tracklist
      A So Many Lies B So Many Lies (Instinct Mix)
RA